Season 1 Episode Guide

001 – “M*A*S*H – The Pilot” (1×01)September 17th, 1972

In the hilarious first episode, Hawkeye and Trapper throw a party to raise money to send Ho-Jon, their houseboy, back to the states to attend college. In order to raise the amount needed they hold a raffle. The prize? A weekend in Tokyo with Lt. Dish. Of course, Frank and Margaret are against this and they call in General Hammond to back them up.

002 – “To Market, To Market” (1×02)September 24th, 1972

Hawkeye and Trapper, desperate to find hydrocortisone that the 4077th needs, theirs was hijacked by black marketers, find a Korean black-marketers willing to trade them some, in return for something expensive. What do Hawkeye and Trapper end up trading? An oak desk of Henry’s, that he is rather fond of. In order to get it out of his office, they take down a wall and bring in a chopper.

003 – “Requiem for A Lightweight” (1×03)October 1st, 1972

In order to keep Henry from getting rid of one of their favorite nurses, who Margaret is fed up with, Trapper agrees to box in a tournament, held at the 4077th. It takes Hawkeye a while to get him to agree, but Trapper was a pretty good boxer in high school, and the nurse is really quite pretty. Things get a little rough on Trapper, but Hawkeye is able to even out the odds.

004 – “Chief Surgeon Who?” (1×04)October 8th, 1972

In the episode that marks Klinger’s first appearance, Frank, outraged that Hawkeye, who he considers a less-than-able military man, is given the position of chief surgeon at the 4077th, goes over Henry’s head, again. Along with Margaret he sends of a general to come and check things out. However, his visit doesn’t go quite as Frank had hoped. After the general arrives, he not only meets Klinger, but is awed by Hawkeye’s talents.

005 – “The Moose” (1×05)October 15th, 1972

Hawkeye’s world is turned upside after he wins a “moose”, a Korean girl who acts as a servant, from another man in a poker game. Hawkeye and the rest of the Swamp-mates try to get her to see that she can be free, but being a servant has been bred into her since early on. When her much younger brother comes to pick her up, Hawkeye is stunned at how the boy acts.

006 – “Yankee Doodle Doctor” (1×06)October 22nd, 1972

Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar put together a film to show how things really work at the 4077th, after the film commissioned by a general turns out to be a farce. In their film, Hawkeye dons a suit and floppy shoes, Radar gets operated on, and Trapper has a horn.

007 – “Bananas, Crackers, and Nuts” (1×07)November 5th, 1972

Hawkeye decides to go insane for a while after his request for some R&R is turned down. A psychiatrist (not Sidney), is called for to observe him, and Hawkeye poses many problems for the poor doctor.

008 – “Cowboy” (1×08)November 12th, 1972

An outraged chopper pilot known as The Cowboy kidnaps Henry, who just received a Dear John letter. Henry won’t allow the pilot leave to go home and straighten things out, so the pilot decides his only course of action is to take Henry’s life, and the best way to do that is with a chopper.

009 “Henry, Please Come Home” (1×09)November 19th, 1972

After the camp is happy to hear that they’ve achieved the highest survival rate of any M*A*S*H unit, they are less thrilled when Henry is given a desk job in Tokyo, leaving Frank in charge. Unable to cope with Frank’s military strictness, Hawkeye and Trapper come up with a plan to bring Henry back where he belongs. All it involves is two passes to Tokyo, a telephone call from a nurse, and Radar faking an illness.

010 – “I Hate A Mystery” (1×10)November 26th, 1972

There has been a rash of petty thefts at the 4077th, and Hawkeye is bewildered to find himself the prime suspect. He decides the only way to clear his name is to find the real thief, and the only way to do that is for Hawkeye to turn into a detective. (The real culprit is Ho-Jon).

011 – “Germ Warfare” (1×11)December 10th, 1972

After “borrowing” some of Frank’s blood and running tests on it, Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar are forced to keep Frank, whom they believe has hepatitis, away from the rest of the camp, which isn’t an easy thing to do considering Frank outranks them all and is looking for Margaret.

012 – “Dear Dad” (1×12)December 17th, 1972

In the first of three such episodes, Hawkeye writes a letter to his father. He tells his dear old dad about the goings-on at the 4077th, which include Klinger attempting to kill himself, and Father Mulcahy talking him out of it, as well as Hawkeye taking on the persona of Santa Claus, and taking a trip to the front lines, all in order to save a critically wounded soldier.

013 – “Edwina” (1×13)December 24th, 1972

Hawkeye is forced to go on a date with Nurse Eddie, after the rest of the nurses say they won’t go out with anyone else until Eddie has her own date. The men all draw straws, and somehow Hawkeye ends up pulling the short straw. The ensuing date isn’t Hawkeye’s finest, Eddie continually hurts him, but in the end things turn out fine.

014 – “Love Story” (1×14)January 7th, 1972

Radar falls for a new nurse, after the latest mail call brings him a Dear John letter from back home, with some help from Hawkeye and Trapper, that is. This new nurse is sophisticated, reading all the classics and listening to the best classical music. So, Hawkeye and Trapper give him a crash course on these subjects, which leads to Radar’s wonderfully classic line: “Ah, Bach!”

015 – “Tuttle” (1×15)January 14th, 1973

In one of their most outrageous stunts to date, Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar make up an entire person! They name their creation Captain Tuttle, and the entire camp falls in love with this mysterious man who gives his entire salary to an orphanage (which is the reason Hawkeye & Co. came up with him in the first place). At the end of the episode, Hawkeye sadly informs the camp that Tuttle was killed in a tragic accident. Always thinking of others instead of himself, Tuttle leaped from a chopper without a parachute.

016 – “The Ringbanger” (1×16)January 21sth, 1973

Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar come up with a plan, basically to get Henry drunk, to send a Colonel, who has a both a very high causality rate, and a tendency to tap his ring (hence the name Ringbanger), back home so he can’t harm anyone else.

017 – “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet” (1×17)January 28th, 1973

In the first episode that really combines drama and comedy, Hawkeye’s friend Tommy Gillis comes to visit. He’s writing a book titled “You Never Hear The Bullet”, referring to all the war movies in which the bullet is heard right before it kills someone. After Tommy is critically wounded, and Hawkeye watches him die, unable to do something, he has a tearful talk with Henry, and then storms into Post-Op and informs the MPs of an underage soldier, who is outraged. In a lesser story, Frank applies for a Purple Heart after slipping in the mud.

018 – “Dear Dad…Again” (1×18)February 4th, 1973

The second such named episode, Hawkeye tells his father of the problems facing Frank and Margaret’s romantic liaison, as well as the course Radar is taking via mail.

019 – “The Longjohn Flap” (1×19)February 18th, 1973

A classic episode in which Hawkeye’s pair of long johns he receives from home travel from person to person, all over the camp, starting with Trapper, who has a cold, and ending up back with Hawkeye. Everyone who gets them trades them for something they want more.

020 – “The Army-Navy Game” (1×20)February 25th, 1973

While the rest of the war listens to a football game between the Army and the Navy, the 4077th has to deal with a bomb that hasn’t gone of yet, one that is in the middle of the camp. As everyone prepares for the end, and the camp is fortified with pillows and mattresses, Hawkeye and Trapper bravely set out to try and defuse the bomb. Sadly the bomb explodes … and Hawkeye and Trapper are covered in CIA propaganda pamphlets.

021 – “Sticky Wicket” (1×21)March 4th, 1973

Hawkeye finally sees things from Frank’s point of view after he and Frank have another argument about Frank’s surgical abilities. The tides turn when Hawkeye suddenly has a patient take a turn for the worst…and he is forced to consider the fact that his talents aren’t always going to be enough.

022 – “Major Fred C. Dobbs” (1×22)March 11th, 1973

Hawkeye and Trapper work to keep Frank from transferring away from the 4077th, by tricking their fellow Swamp-mate into thinking that there is gold abound in the area. The two go crazy with gold paint, and in the end Frank is left with nothing of worth, save for countless objects painted gold, including a jeep and numerous rocks.

023 – “Ceasefire” (1×23)March 18th, 1973

The entire camp, with the exception of the pessimistic Trapper, is delighted to hear that a ceasefire has been called. Everyone begins planning for their lives after the war, Radar starts a scrapbook, Klinger gets rid of some dresses, and there is much merriment. That is, until wounded arriving proves Trapper correct; there was no cease-fire.

024 – “Showtime” (1×24)March 25th, 1973

An entertainer, Jackie Flash, entertains the 4077th while a somewhat paranoid Captain Kaplan is certain he’ll get hurt before he gets to go home, so he decides the safest thing to do is to drive himself to Kempo. Unfortunately, he crashes his jeep and is put in a cast.